Mulcair Questions PMO’s Involvement in Senate Scandal

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…

NDP and Opposition Leader, Thomas Mulcair, has raised suspicion about the newly-released court documents that explain details into an RCMP probe of the Senate expense scandal, asserting that many questions remain over the extent of the Prime Minister’s Office’s involvement in the affair. The court documents revealed on Wednesday showed that the Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, is being investigated as a criminal after cutting a $90,000 cheque to Sen. Mike Duffy to cover ineligible expenses claimed by the former Tory senator.

Conversing with reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, Mulcair stated that “they’re being coached, they’re being prudent, but they’re also showing they have a lot to hide,” as he added that “who else was involved, who else was aware? Those are going to be questions as the criminal investigations move forward.” When the news regarding Senate expense scandal first surfaced in media reports in May, Harper replied that Wright had “acted alone” in his decision to provide payment to Duffy. However, it was revealed later that at least 13 Conservative insiders were aware of the $90,000 cheque as even Harper then admitted that “very few people” were about the deal.

According to the RCMP documents, Wright has confessed that at least three in the PMO were aware of the deal, including Wright’s assistant David van Hemmen, Harper’s legal advisor Benjamin Perrin and Chris Woodcock the PMO’s director of issues management. Commenting on that, Mulcair stated that “in June he said no one else was aware of it, now we know a lot of other people were aware of it.” He concluded that “a lot of the prime minister’s versions can’t be true because he’s saying one thing and it’s opposite on succeeding days.”